April 14, 2020 • 25 mins
Jane Seymour was Henry VIII's third wife.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.
Henry the Eighth died in fifteen forty seven, obese and
ulcerd one leg still rotting from a bad fall of
a horse decades earlier. After his corpse was embalmed and spiced,
(00:26):
it lay in state in the presence Chamber of Whitehall,
surrounded by burning taper candles, and then two weeks later
the slow procession to his burial site began a carriage
followed by hundreds of men on horseback. The carriage itself
was massive, a laborate tall pulled by eight horses, each
(00:50):
ridden by a child on top of the hearse in
full view of the public that had come out onto
the streets to say goodbye to their king. An effigy
made of wax and wood meant to resemble the king
in his more handsome days. The effigy were satin and
velvet and jewels with rings dotting its gloved hands. It
(01:15):
wore a crown. But when King Henry's procession finally reached
its destination, Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. His tomb
wasn't gilded or flanked by sculptures, the type of pomp
you would expect for the final resting place of a
man who saw himself as a dynastic hero, the champion
(01:37):
of England, chosen by God to lead their church and
their nation. That was the tomb he had wanted for himself,
when he had described early in his life, a double
tomb with effigies in marble, carved angels on the wall,
and prophets perched on overlooking columns. But King Henry was
(01:59):
not a man who wanted to acknowledge his own death
to spend thousands of pounds while he lived celebrating the
idea that one day he would be gone, He never
built his own tomb, and so instead he was interred
simply in the vault beneath St. George's Chapel, beneath a
plain black marble slab. What was supposed to be his
(02:22):
temporary resting place became the place that Henry the Eighth,
one of England's most famous monarchs, remained permanently. But one
of his wishes for burial was honored. Though at the
time of his death, Henry the eighth was on his
sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. He specified that he
(02:43):
should be buried not next to her, but next to
his third wife, Jane Seymour. He was married three times
after her, but it was her memory that Henry clung to,
the memory of the wife who had done what all
of the others hadn't, given him a living son. The
two of them side by side for history, for eternity,
(03:08):
the man who had six wives, choosing to be entwined
forever with the one he idealized and romanticized and missed
until finally he joined her in death. I'm Danis Schwartz,
and this is noble blood. Jane Seymour was never going
(03:29):
to make a very advantageous marriage. That's what she knew
growing up in the Wiltshire countryside, her mother's seventh child
with three surviving older brothers. She was still unmarried in
her twenties, largely because her father wasn't wealthy enough to
put up an attractive dowry, and so the family used
what connections they had to send her to court, where
(03:52):
she would be a lady to Catherine of Aragon, the
Queen of England. Jane was blond and fair, and while
she wasn't unattractive, no one would ever call her a
great beauty. The hope was that she would meet a
nice man at court, maybe a night Banneret or the like,
and that she would get married. Jane was raised Catholic
(04:13):
and raised to be a dutiful wife above all else.
She was only barely literate, but she was an expert
at embroidery and housekeeping. And one day she would bear
a brood of children like her mother. Everyone knew it.
Her mother had given her father three living sons. There's
no greater success than that. Good sweet Jane went to
(04:35):
court and watched as Catherine of Arragon was humiliated and
banished and betrayed by her husband. Catherine was a devout
Catholic too. She prayed every day. She was a princess,
daughter of a king and a queen, and she had
loved her husband with her whole heart. Catherine never complained,
(04:58):
never became angry, and her husband flirted with other women,
danced with other women, slept with other women. Catherine hadn't
been able to give Henry a son. Now, just the
little Princess Mary, the girl with red blonde hair like
her father, and a dutiful Catholic heart like her mother.
Princess Mary was only a few years younger than Jane herself,
(05:22):
and Jane had watched Mary's life play out like some
sort of Greek tragedy. The girl had been the pearl
of court, beloved and doated on by her father until
Catherine fell out of favor, until Henry fell in love
with Anne Boleyn and declared Mary illegitimate. Mary was stripped
of her title, no longer a princess, just a lady now,
(05:46):
and banished from court, doomed to teenage years of anguish
of begging her father for mercy, for a shred of love,
or even acknowledgment, all while being forbidden to see her
mother ever again. When Anne Boleyn became Queen and adopted
the Most Happy as her motto, Anne pushed Henry to
(06:08):
continue to ignore Mary and let Catherine suffer the misery
of her own making. Jane didn't mind being Queen Anne's
new lady, although of course she would never admit out loud,
she still had sympathy for the former queen and for
the once princess Mary, still banished from court, even after
Catherine of Arragon eventually died. Jane was dutiful and disciplined,
(06:33):
and Queen Anne liked her plenty, mostly because Jane seemed
to fade into the wallpaper, that is, until she didn't.
As King Henry began to prickle against his impetuous, wilful,
stubborn new wife, and as the son she had promised
him continued to elude her, his eye began to wander.
(06:55):
In the fall, Henry and Queen Anne had taken a
hunting trip and they had stopped at wolf Hall, where
Jane Seymour's family lived. Of course, Jane wasn't there, she
was back at Court, but Henry had seen the domestic scene,
the subservient wife, the proud father, and the many, many
healthy living children, and Henry had remembered the shy smile
(07:18):
of that blonde girl at court who came from such
a fertile line. Anne had had another miscarriage earlier in
the summer. She and Henry were polite but distant for
most of their ride the next day. By winter, Henry's
infatuation with the girl everyone else had seemed to ignore
(07:39):
became the buzz of court. He gave Jane gifts, flirted
with her in public, and of course, Anne Boleyn's enemies
made sure to put Jane front and center in Henry's
eyeline whenever they could. One queen had already been dislodged
because the king had fallen in love with one of
her ladies in waiting, the same thing could happen to
(08:01):
the next queen. Jane was everything Henry realized he wanted
a wife to be docile, sweet, humble, virtuous. There was
no chance that once he got her to bed, she
would be more experienced than he was, that she would
be a seductress who exposed his own inadequacies. By contrast
(08:21):
the way his current Queen Anne did. Henry wanted to
feel like a man again. His wife, who insisted on
arguing with him, having conversations, debating politics, and winning those debates, well,
she did not make him feel like a man. Anne
had gotten her reward. She was queen for God's sake.
(08:42):
Where was his reward? Henry thought? Where was his son?
In the spring? Henry propositioned Jane and asked her to
be his mistress. She responded, I have no greater treasure
in all the world than my honor, and I would
rather die a thousand times than tarnish it. Jane dutifully
(09:04):
returned the letters and expensive gifts that Henry had sent her.
There was no game, no malice, no intrigue in her behavior.
She asked nothing of him, and so Henry wanted her
all the more desperately. Jane was Anne's opposite in temperament
and personality and looks, but ironically she used the same
(09:26):
tact distance to make Henry fall in love with her.
Here was the wife Henry should have married. He thought
Anne was a witch. She had bewitched him. She was
sinful and evil, and she had led him astray. The
day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded, King Henry announced his
engagement to her twenty eight year old former lady, Jane Seymour.
(09:51):
Ten days after that, on May six, the two were wed.
Catherine of Arrogun had been raised as a princess, born
and bred to be married to a king. Anne Boleyn
had been cunning and spent her entire life at court.
(10:12):
She knew how to play the game better than anyone.
Jane Seymour was a twenty eight year old virgin, completely
new to the attention and the spectacle of which she
was now at the center. She informally banned the French
fashions that Anne Boleyn had popularized at court. As her motto,
(10:33):
she adopted the phrase bound to obey and serve, and
as for her symbol, it would be a phoenix. The
Tutor dynasty would be born anew after the disaster of
Anne Boleyn, Henry was besotted. Jane was everything he wanted
in a wife. He even took up embroidery poorly just
(10:55):
to spend time next to her, to watch her deft
fingers maneuvered their way between string and cotton, building something
intricate and beautiful onto a fabric that would find its
place somewhere in their home. Their home. Henry had a wife,
and soon he would have a son. He had to
(11:17):
the summer after Jane and Henry got married, Henry received
terrible news. Back when he had been married to Catherine,
he had had a son out of wedlock with a mistress,
a bastard named Henry fitz Roy, now a teenager. In
July of fifty six, Henry fitz Roy, the Duke of
(11:37):
Richmond and Somerset, had died only seventeen years old. They
say it was consumption, something that had taken hold of
his lungs. Yes, he had been illegitimate, but he was
still Henry's son, and before his death, Henry had even
been contemplating legitimizing him. Henry Fitzroy could have been his heir.
(11:59):
Now that he was dad in the ground, it was
all up to Jane Seymour. Though a magnificent coronation for
Jane to introduce her to the people as their official
queen had been scheduled in October, uprisings all over England
put those plans aside for the time being. The people
(12:21):
were still protesting Henry's break from the Catholic Church, his
disillusion of the monasteries, and seizing their property to add
to his own wealth. The largest protest, called the Pilgrimage
of Grace, took months to quell entirely. Jane, who had
been raised to devout Catholic, of course, quietly asked Henry
(12:42):
if he might show mercy to the men involved, After all,
they had only been attempting to be true to their faith.
Henry spun his head around and snapped at his young wife,
to whom he had been married for months and yet
who still wasn't pregnant. You should hold your tongue when
it comes to matters of the king, he spat. After all,
(13:04):
you remember well the fate of your predecessors. Jane was
left alone shaking. She never contradicted or challenged Henry again.
She learned quickly the way to persuade him of anything,
to achieve any change, merely mention it. Allude to it
once casually. It seems such a shame. Your daughter Mary
(13:26):
isn't here to enjoy the feast, Jane might say sweetly.
Henry might murmur a response, or he might not. Did
your daughter Mary enjoy riding? She'd ask? How is Mary's embroidery?
I heard her embroidery was beautiful and delicate, she might say.
And so then, when weeks later Henry had the magnificent
(13:48):
idea to finally allow Mary his daughter back to court,
Jane just had to smile and clap her hands and
praise his wisdom. Mary, now one with a world very
darkness in her eyes, bowed deeply to her father and
his new wife. Jane would become something of a big
sister to her, a figure of kindness who shepherded her
(14:11):
back into the fold. Jane's coronation was delayed again for
good enough reasons. There was a plague in London, they said,
there were still aftershocks of rebellions about the monasteries around
the country. But in the back of Jane's mind, she
couldn't help but think that the true reason, the true
reason she wasn't being celebrated out in the streets with
(14:32):
the crown on her head and a king by her side,
was because she hadn't done her duty yet, she wasn't pregnant.
Why waste a parade on a woman who was still
as disposable as all the rest. Finally it came her miracle,
(14:52):
her savior. In February of seven, Jane's period stopped. Her
petite changed. She had done it all. The soothsayers said
it would be a boy. Henry would stroke her belly,
putting his face against her skin and cooing into her flesh. Edward, Edward,
(15:14):
he whispered. When Jane first felt the baby kick. In May,
there was a massive celebration, with Jane wearing a gown
open at the belly and lined with lace. Beneath the quickening,
they believed was the infant soul entering its body. Here
was the prince who would secure the tutor dynasty. He
(15:35):
was on his way throughout the country. There were bonfires
and parties where wine flowed and singing filled the air.
With Jane's belly expanding, she mentioned that she had a
craving for quail. Bring my wife quail, Henry bellowed. The
quail was out of season in England. He ordered that
(15:56):
it be brought specially from Calais, with orders to expe
banned of the search and go even further afield. If
enough quail couldn't be found, Jane would have everything she
wanted while she was carrying all of Henry's hopes in
her belly. In September, she was put on bedrest, confined
her chamber, and not permitted to leave to prevent any
(16:17):
trouble with the pregnancy. Henry could not lose another son,
and this was going to be a son. Everyone knew it. Finally,
it had been long enough enough, waiting, enough maneuvering, enough
plotting and marrying and beheading. Henry finally had a wife,
(16:38):
and Henry was about to have a legitimate son. A
month later, the labor began. Henry took as many precautions
as physically possible to ensure the survival of his child.
Most births at the time would be attended to by
a midwife. Henry insisted instead on a team of all
(17:00):
male doctors. When the labor began, it quickly became apparent
that the infant was in a breach position. For two
days and three nights, Jane did her best to follow
her doctor's instructions to shut out the pain and to
think of nothing but how happy Henry would be when
he finally met his son. And then, finally, with a
(17:25):
final scream of pain and a whimper, it was over.
She had done it the day before St. Edward's day.
On October twelve, Prince Edward was born, a healthy, living,
legitimate male child. Jane wept with relief. A few days
(17:47):
after the birth, the baby was made Duke of Cornwall
and Earl of Chester, Jane's brother got promoted to Earle,
and Jane was well enough to dress and sit in
the receiving room for edward It's christening, greeting the well
wishers who congratulated her on achieving with the two women
before her had been unable to do. Mary, the boy's
(18:10):
half sister, was the godmother, But a week later Jane
felt woozy and lightheaded. Within the hour, her fever spiked.
She was delirious and sweating. By the time she awoke
early the next morning. It was obvious that a priest
would need to be summoned. Jane Seymour died at noon
(18:34):
that day in a rush of fever and blood, just
after she had given Henry everything he wanted, after she
had just ensured that her position as queen was secure.
It's difficult to know exactly why Jane died twelve days
(18:55):
after childbirth, whether it was child bed fever, a pulmonary embolism, hemorrhaging.
It also seemed possible, even likely, that Jane hadn't fully
expelled the placenta after giving birth, left in her body,
the placenta became infected. Ironically, male doctors at the time
(19:15):
had far less experience when it came to childbirth than midwives.
If Jane had been attended to by a midwife who
had been through hundreds of births, the midwife would have
known exactly what to do and could have solved the problem.
After Jane's death, King Henry was so depressed that he
could barely speak. He left the funeral arrangements to two
(19:39):
of his advisers and went off to mourn in isolation.
Jane Seymour's body was brought to a wax chandler who
removed her entrails and embalmed her body with spices, before
she was passed off to a lead plumber, who soldered
her into place. She lay in state, then at Hampton Court,
(19:59):
surround did by candles with a nightly watch to prevent
any more harm from coming to her. Jane is the
only one of Henry's six wives who received an official
queen's funeral. The route for her casket to get to Windsor,
where she would be buried, was hung with black cloth
(20:19):
out nearly every window. Her wax effigy atop the casket
rested on a golden pillow. It wore golden shoes and
rings on its finger, and it was dressed in beautifully
embroidered stockings. The carriage was trailed by twenty nine wailing mourners,
(20:41):
one for each year of Jane's life. Young Mary was
Jane's chief mourner. Stories would come out later, ballads martyring
Jane saying that she had chosen to get a cesarean section,
or that she was given the option to either save
her own life or save the life of her child,
(21:04):
and she had chosen the latter. It's pleasant to imagine
her heroic to give agency to the woman who was
most often characterized in history books as just the opposite
of Anne. A pendulum swing from raven, herod and witty
to blonde and docile. The phoenix dies to bring new
life that was Jane Seal the phoenix death turns to
(21:27):
new life. Henry finally got his son, but he would
spend the rest of his life mourning and yearning for
the wife he lost too soon, because now that she
was gone, in her memory she would always be perfect.
Eight years after losing Jane, Henry the Eighth commissioned a
(21:48):
family portrait. By this time, he had already gone through
two more wives and had finally landed on his sixth
and final wife, Katherine Parr. In the family portrait, Henry's
at the center, with his son Edward directly to his right.
On either far side of the frame stand Princess Mary
and Princess Elizabeth, daughters respectively of Catherine of Aragon and
(22:13):
Anne Boleyn, And to King Henry's left standing is his queen,
not the woman he was married to at the time No.
Nearly a decade after her death, Henry insisted that the
family portrait be painted to feature his queen as Jane Seymour.
(22:40):
That's the short life of Jane Seymour, but stick around
after a brief sponsored break to hear a bit more
about Little Baby Edward. Little Baby Edward was given his
(23:01):
own household at Hampton Court, where King Henry forbid both
dogs and serving boys too clumsy. No one was allowed
to leave for London in the summer. When illnesses ran rampant,
No food or dirty utensils could be left within sight
of the infant. The floors, walls, and ceilings of his
chamber were scrubbed down daily. Guests would need written permission
(23:26):
to be allowed to approach Edward's cradle. A brand new
kitchen and washhouse were built at Hampton Court just for
Edward to prevent any possible contamination by the rest of court.
Before a single article of clothing was put on the
young prince, it needed to be washed, brushed, tested for poison, perfumed,
(23:48):
and then dried fully by the fire. Henry's protections worked
sort of. Edwards survived infancy. He lived long enough to
become king after Henry's eventual death when he Edward was
just nine years old. He lasted until he was fifteen.
King Henry's daughters, then, who he thought of as his failures,
(24:11):
took the throne, next Mary, who tried to restore Catholicism
to England, and then finally the last tutor ruler, Elizabeth
the First. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry,
who had tried so hard to produce a male heir,
who would have thought that it would be a daughter
(24:32):
all along who would usher in a golden period of
art and stability for England. Noble Blood is a production
of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and
produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.
(24:54):
Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,
and you can learn more about the show over at
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Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M hmm
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.
Henry the Eighth died in fifteen forty seven, obese and
ulcerd one leg still rotting from a bad fall of
a horse decades earlier. After his corpse was embalmed and spiced,
(00:26):
it lay in state in the presence Chamber of Whitehall,
surrounded by burning taper candles, and then two weeks later
the slow procession to his burial site began a carriage
followed by hundreds of men on horseback. The carriage itself
was massive, a laborate tall pulled by eight horses, each
(00:50):
ridden by a child on top of the hearse in
full view of the public that had come out onto
the streets to say goodbye to their king. An effigy
made of wax and wood meant to resemble the king
in his more handsome days. The effigy were satin and
velvet and jewels with rings dotting its gloved hands. It
(01:15):
wore a crown. But when King Henry's procession finally reached
its destination, Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. His tomb
wasn't gilded or flanked by sculptures, the type of pomp
you would expect for the final resting place of a
man who saw himself as a dynastic hero, the champion
(01:37):
of England, chosen by God to lead their church and
their nation. That was the tomb he had wanted for himself,
when he had described early in his life, a double
tomb with effigies in marble, carved angels on the wall,
and prophets perched on overlooking columns. But King Henry was
(01:59):
not a man who wanted to acknowledge his own death
to spend thousands of pounds while he lived celebrating the
idea that one day he would be gone, He never
built his own tomb, and so instead he was interred
simply in the vault beneath St. George's Chapel, beneath a
plain black marble slab. What was supposed to be his
(02:22):
temporary resting place became the place that Henry the Eighth,
one of England's most famous monarchs, remained permanently. But one
of his wishes for burial was honored. Though at the
time of his death, Henry the eighth was on his
sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. He specified that he
(02:43):
should be buried not next to her, but next to
his third wife, Jane Seymour. He was married three times
after her, but it was her memory that Henry clung to,
the memory of the wife who had done what all
of the others hadn't, given him a living son. The
two of them side by side for history, for eternity,
(03:08):
the man who had six wives, choosing to be entwined
forever with the one he idealized and romanticized and missed
until finally he joined her in death. I'm Danis Schwartz,
and this is noble blood. Jane Seymour was never going
(03:29):
to make a very advantageous marriage. That's what she knew
growing up in the Wiltshire countryside, her mother's seventh child
with three surviving older brothers. She was still unmarried in
her twenties, largely because her father wasn't wealthy enough to
put up an attractive dowry, and so the family used
what connections they had to send her to court, where
(03:52):
she would be a lady to Catherine of Aragon, the
Queen of England. Jane was blond and fair, and while
she wasn't unattractive, no one would ever call her a
great beauty. The hope was that she would meet a
nice man at court, maybe a night Banneret or the like,
and that she would get married. Jane was raised Catholic
(04:13):
and raised to be a dutiful wife above all else.
She was only barely literate, but she was an expert
at embroidery and housekeeping. And one day she would bear
a brood of children like her mother. Everyone knew it.
Her mother had given her father three living sons. There's
no greater success than that. Good sweet Jane went to
(04:35):
court and watched as Catherine of Arragon was humiliated and
banished and betrayed by her husband. Catherine was a devout
Catholic too. She prayed every day. She was a princess,
daughter of a king and a queen, and she had
loved her husband with her whole heart. Catherine never complained,
(04:58):
never became angry, and her husband flirted with other women,
danced with other women, slept with other women. Catherine hadn't
been able to give Henry a son. Now, just the
little Princess Mary, the girl with red blonde hair like
her father, and a dutiful Catholic heart like her mother.
Princess Mary was only a few years younger than Jane herself,
(05:22):
and Jane had watched Mary's life play out like some
sort of Greek tragedy. The girl had been the pearl
of court, beloved and doated on by her father until
Catherine fell out of favor, until Henry fell in love
with Anne Boleyn and declared Mary illegitimate. Mary was stripped
of her title, no longer a princess, just a lady now,
(05:46):
and banished from court, doomed to teenage years of anguish
of begging her father for mercy, for a shred of love,
or even acknowledgment, all while being forbidden to see her
mother ever again. When Anne Boleyn became Queen and adopted
the Most Happy as her motto, Anne pushed Henry to
(06:08):
continue to ignore Mary and let Catherine suffer the misery
of her own making. Jane didn't mind being Queen Anne's
new lady, although of course she would never admit out loud,
she still had sympathy for the former queen and for
the once princess Mary, still banished from court, even after
Catherine of Arragon eventually died. Jane was dutiful and disciplined,
(06:33):
and Queen Anne liked her plenty, mostly because Jane seemed
to fade into the wallpaper, that is, until she didn't.
As King Henry began to prickle against his impetuous, wilful,
stubborn new wife, and as the son she had promised
him continued to elude her, his eye began to wander.
(06:55):
In the fall, Henry and Queen Anne had taken a
hunting trip and they had stopped at wolf Hall, where
Jane Seymour's family lived. Of course, Jane wasn't there, she
was back at Court, but Henry had seen the domestic scene,
the subservient wife, the proud father, and the many, many
healthy living children, and Henry had remembered the shy smile
(07:18):
of that blonde girl at court who came from such
a fertile line. Anne had had another miscarriage earlier in
the summer. She and Henry were polite but distant for
most of their ride the next day. By winter, Henry's
infatuation with the girl everyone else had seemed to ignore
(07:39):
became the buzz of court. He gave Jane gifts, flirted
with her in public, and of course, Anne Boleyn's enemies
made sure to put Jane front and center in Henry's
eyeline whenever they could. One queen had already been dislodged
because the king had fallen in love with one of
her ladies in waiting, the same thing could happen to
(08:01):
the next queen. Jane was everything Henry realized he wanted
a wife to be docile, sweet, humble, virtuous. There was
no chance that once he got her to bed, she
would be more experienced than he was, that she would
be a seductress who exposed his own inadequacies. By contrast
(08:21):
the way his current Queen Anne did. Henry wanted to
feel like a man again. His wife, who insisted on
arguing with him, having conversations, debating politics, and winning those debates, well,
she did not make him feel like a man. Anne
had gotten her reward. She was queen for God's sake.
(08:42):
Where was his reward? Henry thought? Where was his son?
In the spring? Henry propositioned Jane and asked her to
be his mistress. She responded, I have no greater treasure
in all the world than my honor, and I would
rather die a thousand times than tarnish it. Jane dutifully
(09:04):
returned the letters and expensive gifts that Henry had sent her.
There was no game, no malice, no intrigue in her behavior.
She asked nothing of him, and so Henry wanted her
all the more desperately. Jane was Anne's opposite in temperament
and personality and looks, but ironically she used the same
(09:26):
tact distance to make Henry fall in love with her.
Here was the wife Henry should have married. He thought
Anne was a witch. She had bewitched him. She was
sinful and evil, and she had led him astray. The
day after Anne Boleyn was beheaded, King Henry announced his
engagement to her twenty eight year old former lady, Jane Seymour.
(09:51):
Ten days after that, on May six, the two were wed.
Catherine of Arrogun had been raised as a princess, born
and bred to be married to a king. Anne Boleyn
had been cunning and spent her entire life at court.
(10:12):
She knew how to play the game better than anyone.
Jane Seymour was a twenty eight year old virgin, completely
new to the attention and the spectacle of which she
was now at the center. She informally banned the French
fashions that Anne Boleyn had popularized at court. As her motto,
(10:33):
she adopted the phrase bound to obey and serve, and
as for her symbol, it would be a phoenix. The
Tutor dynasty would be born anew after the disaster of
Anne Boleyn, Henry was besotted. Jane was everything he wanted
in a wife. He even took up embroidery poorly just
(10:55):
to spend time next to her, to watch her deft
fingers maneuvered their way between string and cotton, building something
intricate and beautiful onto a fabric that would find its
place somewhere in their home. Their home. Henry had a wife,
and soon he would have a son. He had to
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the summer after Jane and Henry got married, Henry received
terrible news. Back when he had been married to Catherine,
he had had a son out of wedlock with a mistress,
a bastard named Henry fitz Roy, now a teenager. In
July of fifty six, Henry fitz Roy, the Duke of
(11:37):
Richmond and Somerset, had died only seventeen years old. They
say it was consumption, something that had taken hold of
his lungs. Yes, he had been illegitimate, but he was
still Henry's son, and before his death, Henry had even
been contemplating legitimizing him. Henry Fitzroy could have been his heir.
(11:59):
Now that he was dad in the ground, it was
all up to Jane Seymour. Though a magnificent coronation for
Jane to introduce her to the people as their official
queen had been scheduled in October, uprisings all over England
put those plans aside for the time being. The people
(12:21):
were still protesting Henry's break from the Catholic Church, his
disillusion of the monasteries, and seizing their property to add
to his own wealth. The largest protest, called the Pilgrimage
of Grace, took months to quell entirely. Jane, who had
been raised to devout Catholic, of course, quietly asked Henry
(12:42):
if he might show mercy to the men involved, After all,
they had only been attempting to be true to their faith.
Henry spun his head around and snapped at his young wife,
to whom he had been married for months and yet
who still wasn't pregnant. You should hold your tongue when
it comes to matters of the king, he spat. After all,
(13:04):
you remember well the fate of your predecessors. Jane was
left alone shaking. She never contradicted or challenged Henry again.
She learned quickly the way to persuade him of anything,
to achieve any change, merely mention it. Allude to it
once casually. It seems such a shame. Your daughter Mary
(13:26):
isn't here to enjoy the feast, Jane might say sweetly.
Henry might murmur a response, or he might not. Did
your daughter Mary enjoy riding? She'd ask? How is Mary's embroidery?
I heard her embroidery was beautiful and delicate, she might say.
And so then, when weeks later Henry had the magnificent
(13:48):
idea to finally allow Mary his daughter back to court,
Jane just had to smile and clap her hands and
praise his wisdom. Mary, now one with a world very
darkness in her eyes, bowed deeply to her father and
his new wife. Jane would become something of a big
sister to her, a figure of kindness who shepherded her
(14:11):
back into the fold. Jane's coronation was delayed again for
good enough reasons. There was a plague in London, they said,
there were still aftershocks of rebellions about the monasteries around
the country. But in the back of Jane's mind, she
couldn't help but think that the true reason, the true
reason she wasn't being celebrated out in the streets with
(14:32):
the crown on her head and a king by her side,
was because she hadn't done her duty yet, she wasn't pregnant.
Why waste a parade on a woman who was still
as disposable as all the rest. Finally it came her miracle,
(14:52):
her savior. In February of seven, Jane's period stopped. Her
petite changed. She had done it all. The soothsayers said
it would be a boy. Henry would stroke her belly,
putting his face against her skin and cooing into her flesh. Edward, Edward,
(15:14):
he whispered. When Jane first felt the baby kick. In May,
there was a massive celebration, with Jane wearing a gown
open at the belly and lined with lace. Beneath the quickening,
they believed was the infant soul entering its body. Here
was the prince who would secure the tutor dynasty. He
(15:35):
was on his way throughout the country. There were bonfires
and parties where wine flowed and singing filled the air.
With Jane's belly expanding, she mentioned that she had a
craving for quail. Bring my wife quail, Henry bellowed. The
quail was out of season in England. He ordered that
(15:56):
it be brought specially from Calais, with orders to expe
banned of the search and go even further afield. If
enough quail couldn't be found, Jane would have everything she
wanted while she was carrying all of Henry's hopes in
her belly. In September, she was put on bedrest, confined
her chamber, and not permitted to leave to prevent any
(16:17):
trouble with the pregnancy. Henry could not lose another son,
and this was going to be a son. Everyone knew it. Finally,
it had been long enough enough, waiting, enough maneuvering, enough
plotting and marrying and beheading. Henry finally had a wife,
(16:38):
and Henry was about to have a legitimate son. A
month later, the labor began. Henry took as many precautions
as physically possible to ensure the survival of his child.
Most births at the time would be attended to by
a midwife. Henry insisted instead on a team of all
(17:00):
male doctors. When the labor began, it quickly became apparent
that the infant was in a breach position. For two
days and three nights, Jane did her best to follow
her doctor's instructions to shut out the pain and to
think of nothing but how happy Henry would be when
he finally met his son. And then, finally, with a
(17:25):
final scream of pain and a whimper, it was over.
She had done it the day before St. Edward's day.
On October twelve, Prince Edward was born, a healthy, living,
legitimate male child. Jane wept with relief. A few days
(17:47):
after the birth, the baby was made Duke of Cornwall
and Earl of Chester, Jane's brother got promoted to Earle,
and Jane was well enough to dress and sit in
the receiving room for edward It's christening, greeting the well
wishers who congratulated her on achieving with the two women
before her had been unable to do. Mary, the boy's
(18:10):
half sister, was the godmother, But a week later Jane
felt woozy and lightheaded. Within the hour, her fever spiked.
She was delirious and sweating. By the time she awoke
early the next morning. It was obvious that a priest
would need to be summoned. Jane Seymour died at noon
(18:34):
that day in a rush of fever and blood, just
after she had given Henry everything he wanted, after she
had just ensured that her position as queen was secure.
It's difficult to know exactly why Jane died twelve days
(18:55):
after childbirth, whether it was child bed fever, a pulmonary embolism, hemorrhaging.
It also seemed possible, even likely, that Jane hadn't fully
expelled the placenta after giving birth, left in her body,
the placenta became infected. Ironically, male doctors at the time
(19:15):
had far less experience when it came to childbirth than midwives.
If Jane had been attended to by a midwife who
had been through hundreds of births, the midwife would have
known exactly what to do and could have solved the problem.
After Jane's death, King Henry was so depressed that he
could barely speak. He left the funeral arrangements to two
(19:39):
of his advisers and went off to mourn in isolation.
Jane Seymour's body was brought to a wax chandler who
removed her entrails and embalmed her body with spices, before
she was passed off to a lead plumber, who soldered
her into place. She lay in state, then at Hampton Court,
(19:59):
surround did by candles with a nightly watch to prevent
any more harm from coming to her. Jane is the
only one of Henry's six wives who received an official
queen's funeral. The route for her casket to get to Windsor,
where she would be buried, was hung with black cloth
(20:19):
out nearly every window. Her wax effigy atop the casket
rested on a golden pillow. It wore golden shoes and
rings on its finger, and it was dressed in beautifully
embroidered stockings. The carriage was trailed by twenty nine wailing mourners,
(20:41):
one for each year of Jane's life. Young Mary was
Jane's chief mourner. Stories would come out later, ballads martyring
Jane saying that she had chosen to get a cesarean section,
or that she was given the option to either save
her own life or save the life of her child,
(21:04):
and she had chosen the latter. It's pleasant to imagine
her heroic to give agency to the woman who was
most often characterized in history books as just the opposite
of Anne. A pendulum swing from raven, herod and witty
to blonde and docile. The phoenix dies to bring new
life that was Jane Seal the phoenix death turns to
(21:27):
new life. Henry finally got his son, but he would
spend the rest of his life mourning and yearning for
the wife he lost too soon, because now that she
was gone, in her memory she would always be perfect.
Eight years after losing Jane, Henry the Eighth commissioned a
(21:48):
family portrait. By this time, he had already gone through
two more wives and had finally landed on his sixth
and final wife, Katherine Parr. In the family portrait, Henry's
at the center, with his son Edward directly to his right.
On either far side of the frame stand Princess Mary
and Princess Elizabeth, daughters respectively of Catherine of Aragon and
(22:13):
Anne Boleyn, And to King Henry's left standing is his queen,
not the woman he was married to at the time No.
Nearly a decade after her death, Henry insisted that the
family portrait be painted to feature his queen as Jane Seymour.
(22:40):
That's the short life of Jane Seymour, but stick around
after a brief sponsored break to hear a bit more
about Little Baby Edward. Little Baby Edward was given his
(23:01):
own household at Hampton Court, where King Henry forbid both
dogs and serving boys too clumsy. No one was allowed
to leave for London in the summer. When illnesses ran rampant,
No food or dirty utensils could be left within sight
of the infant. The floors, walls, and ceilings of his
chamber were scrubbed down daily. Guests would need written permission
(23:26):
to be allowed to approach Edward's cradle. A brand new
kitchen and washhouse were built at Hampton Court just for
Edward to prevent any possible contamination by the rest of court.
Before a single article of clothing was put on the
young prince, it needed to be washed, brushed, tested for poison, perfumed,
(23:48):
and then dried fully by the fire. Henry's protections worked
sort of. Edwards survived infancy. He lived long enough to
become king after Henry's eventual death when he Edward was
just nine years old. He lasted until he was fifteen.
King Henry's daughters, then, who he thought of as his failures,
(24:11):
took the throne, next Mary, who tried to restore Catholicism
to England, and then finally the last tutor ruler, Elizabeth
the First. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry,
who had tried so hard to produce a male heir,
who would have thought that it would be a daughter
(24:32):
all along who would usher in a golden period of
art and stability for England. Noble Blood is a production
of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and
produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.
(24:54):
Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,
and you can learn more about the show over at
Noble blood tails dot com. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M hmm
Host
Dana Schwartz
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